Walking back to the house with plastic bags burning through my palms, I was greeted with the sight of Mrs McKracken. She was the groundskeeper; an elderly lady with thick grey hair and kindly disposition. Most of the time she went about her work and let us be. At that moment, however, she seemed to be wrestling with a flower bush.

Despite wanting to get inside and drop the bags I carried, I stopped before I reached the veranda. “Are you okay, Mrs McKracken?”

She stopped what she was doing and looked up. “Oh, hello Miss Cook, I didn’t realize you were there. Everything’s fine. Just thought I saw one of those – what are they called . . . those critters that look like they’re a flower or some such. They’re invasive and troublesome, you know.”

The first thing I pictured was an orchid mantis, which I didn’t think lived in our part of the world. I decided not to press question. “Oh, okay. Well, if you need pesticide or something, I’m pretty sure my cousin’ll cover it.”

Mrs McKracken gave an absent nod and went back to what she had been doing. I shrugged and continued on inside, trickily balancing to open the door without using my hands. “Hey Nat,” I called out. “I’ve got everything. And if you feel like drawing some weird bugs, I think Mrs McKracken found some.”

Natasha appeared in the door to the kitchen. “Yeah, I wish.” She held up a small, battered leather notebook with a couple ribbon bookmarks attached to the spine with metal charms hanging from the ends.

I stared at it. “Another one?”

She nodded as I dropped the bags on the kitchen table. I made a face of annoyance to myself before quickly turning around with a breezy smile. “Well, what does it say? Let’s see.” I held out my hand and she gave it to me.

I flipped through it, irritated that there was still a lot of that curling handwriting that I could barely make out. Whoever wrote this needed a serious lesson in legibility. If I ever found out who . . . No, that wasn’t the way to think. When I found out who, I’d give them a good piece of my mind.

I stopped at a page with some beautifully rendering drawings in ink. For a second, I though Natasha was pulling my leg and had made a copy of something from the Spiderwick Chronicles field guide. Then I realized that wasn’t her style, and these drawings didn’t quite match up with my memory.

They were miniscule people dressed in garments out of leaves or flower petals, with slender, dragonfly wings inked in. A female dominated the right hand page, and a male the left, and various smaller ones were crammed in the space remaining. I went to the next pages and found more detailed illustrations.

I looked up at Natasha. “Yeah, this fits what she said.” I checked out a little bit more. “Fairies. Actual, honest-to-god fairies.”

“Yup.”

“Well, this is less weird than nokkens and fenrir wolves.”

Natasha stared at me. “We have fairies in the garden and that’s all you say? They might be dangerous! Remember all that reading we did on them? They like playing pranks and – and causing all sorts of trouble! What if they –”

“Gosh, Nat, take a breath,” I told her. “Nothing’s happened yet. And they’re supposed to be easy to get rid of – milk and iron, remember? Anyways, it shouldn’t be too hard to get them to leave us alone. Look at what we’ve done already and look at how tiny they are. We can probably tell them not to mess with us and they’ll keep away.”

She raised her eyebrows. “And you think that’ll work?”

“Like it hasn’t before.”

She crossed her arms. “This is why Nick thinks we attract trouble. And are going to die.”

“Pfft.” I waved my hand. “We’re fine. He’s just paranoid.” Natasha frowned as me as I sat down at the kitchen table and focused on decoding the handwriting. Grumbling to herself she started to put everything else away. I think she wanted to keep busy. I would’ve done it later.

It took me about ten minutes to find what I wanted. “Hah! Perfect. Let’s just make sure not to do this during Avira’s hours. You know how protective she is.” I stood up. “Grab what you think you need. Then we’re going to Fernwood to enter the fairy realm.”

“This is insane,” she grumbled even as she shoved things into her side bag. I grinned and shoved the notebook in a pocket on my jacket. After bringing Natasha up to speed on helpful tips I’d just read, we were all set to go. She seemed a bit annoyed as I locked the door behind us, but I was ecstatic. This was going to be fun.